This is the last maple pencil holder that I finished up last week. I built a set of 10 pencil holders over the last few months. I put out a video episode on these pencil holders back in April.

Yo whats up everybody here is the project post for the maple pencil holders I built in Episode 87. These maple pencil holders took a few months to work on because I have been working on other stuff in the shop since I started them. I made a total of 10 pencil holders and they are really not that hard to make once you set your tools up. Each pencil holder has 2 main parts the base with a roundover profile on each side, and the box that sits on top of the base. The box is 4 1/4in thick pieces with miters that are glued together. One of the problems I had when I first started working on these pencil holders was when I would sand the inside of the box after I glued it up. I cut my hand on the end grain of the box about 10 different times. Most of the time I would catch it and tape up the cut but I didn’t realize I was bleeding a few times and I had to throw some boxes out because of the blood stains. Other than that I really didn’t have any problems with this project. Originally I was gonna stain both the box and the base but I decided to just use polyurathane on the box and stain the base with a minwax walnut stain.

Yo whats up everybody here is the project post for the entertainment center. I built a low entertainment center for the saw dust chronicles build challenge. I filmed 5 episodes on the entertainment center in September and October. Total time for this project was about 180 hours. Final Dimensions are 20 in tall 31-1/8 in wide 19-3/4 in deep. I built this entertainment center out of pine panels which I glued up myself. There were 14 panels total. There are 2 shelfs in each side compartment and 3 shelfs in the middle compartment. I cut through dados for all the selfs and the bottom panel. I cut stopped dados for the top panel. The front edge of the top panel overhangs the entire entertainment center by 2 inches. The side panels are held in place by rabbets cut in the top and bottom panels. The middle panels are held in place by through dados cut on the top and bottom panels. One of the problems I had was trying to figure out how to cut 5 dados in a 19 in tall panel without going through the other side. It took a lot of measurements to figure everything out. The dados are about 3/8 in deep and are 5/8 in wide.

One of the things that took a really long time was to flatten all the panels. Theres 14 panels total and you have to flatten both sides. I ended up having to redo some panels so in the end I flattened 17 panels. I used a block plane and a surform shaver to remove most of the material then I finished up by sanding the panel with 100 grit sandpaper.I went over how to make panels in Episode 73 Panels.

I put 2 coats of a golden pecan stain on all the parts. Then I put 4 coats of thinned down polyurethane on all the parts. I used steel wool to smooth out the polyurethane after I put all 4 coats on. This is the first time I have used steel wool on a project like this is and it actually works really good. It doesnt remove a lot of material like sand paper does so really dont have to worry about taking off layers of finish.I did all the finishing before I glued everything together because there wouldnt have been enough room to get all the way to the back of each panel to stain it.

Yo whats up everybody in august I got an order from a church in Michigan to make them 200 small crosses. I made crosses for them in 2009 but I only finished about 60 crosses. These are the crosses I built in Episode 78 Crosses. Each cross is cut out of 1×3 construction grade fur from home depot. I only spent about $7 to make all 200 crosses. The wood is pretty cheap but its construction grade lumber so theres a lot of knots and cracks you have to cut out. I would usually cut or sand 25-35 crosses a night. Each cross is about 1 in wide 3 in long and 1/4 in thick. I put 3 coats of a walnut color stain on all the crosses. All the crosses turned out looking really good. When you look at the pictures theres a big difference between the crosses from last year and this year. Here are the first 90 crosses I made.

Yo whats up everybody I finished 4 bookends about 4 weeks ago so this is the project post. These are the book ends I built in Episode 71 and Episode 72 There are 2 book ends with the letter E and 2 with the letter A. The letters are the first letter in the persons names that these are going to. There are heart shaped glasses that are filled with sand. By the way these book ends are going to 2 women. I would not put a heart shaped glass on something that was for a man. lol I used 3/4 pine for the side and bottom pieces. I laminated 2 pieces of 3/4 pine for the letters they came out to be 1- 1/2 in thick. I cut the letters at the scroll saw. Then put my palm sander in my vise and sanded the letters to 220 grit. I painted them with white paint. I think the letters look better when there a different color then the side and bottom piece. I used hot glue to glue the letters and heart glasses in place. For the rabbet I used Titebond 2 II wood glue. The cut a rabbet on the vertical side piece where the side and bottom piece come together. I put 3 coats of stain and 2 coats of polyurethane on the book ends. The book ends weigh about 1-1/2 lbs which is enough to hold books in place.

Yo whats up everybody I finished the display case a few weeks ago and and it turned out looking pretty good. I used 3/4 pine for the display case. It has an ogee profile on the front of the top piece. I put 3 coats of finish and then 2 coats of polyurethane. The back panels are recessed in so they dont stick out. Recessing back panels is a good way to make a project look better but its a lot more difficult because if the sides and the back panels aren’t square then the back panels wont fit properly and you will have big spaces between the sides and back panels.

The last project I cut dados on was the shoe rack. I tried to use a 1/2 straight bit to cut a 3/4 in dado by shimming the fence over which didnt work too good. On the display case I got a 3/4 in straight bit and I used a plywood fence instead of a 2×2 pine fence. The problem with using a 2×2 fence is that the clamps that hold the fence in place really stick up and get in the way of the router. With the plywood fence I could set the clamps about 5 in back from the router so they would not get in the way.

Yo whats up everybody I finished the chest last week. The chest is 12 in wide 4 in high and 8 in deep. There are 14 3/4 in strips on the top that are glued to 2 curved pieces. I rough cut the 2 curved pieces with my jig saw then I used a rasp to take off as much material as I could without going past my line. I taped a template on the top and used a flush trim bit to get them the same size. There are 3 coats of finish and 2 coats of polyurethane on the chest. Total time fore this project was about 12 hours but I was filming most of the project.

Yo whats up everybody I finished the shoe rack 2 weeks ago so here it is. I used about 50 bd ft of 3/4 pine for the shoe rack. The shoe rack is 35 in tall 32 in wide, and 11 in deep. On the back of each shelf there is a one inch strip that stops the shoes from going off the back of the shoe rack. I used dados for the shelves. The only problem that I had was the router bit I was using would cut a 1/2 in dado. The pine was 3/4 in thick so I had to shim the fence over until I got a good fit.I over shimed it 3 out of the 4 times and there was a really small space. It really wasnt a big deal but you really have to be careful that your router bit is the same size as the material that you are using because if you try to move the fence or shim it over you could make the dado too wide. I sanded all the parts to 150 before I started staining. I stained all the parts 5 times with a english chestnut and sedona red mix. Then I hand sanded all the parts to 220.

Yo whats up everybody I built this pictutre frame about 4 weeks ago and I wanted to do a blog post on it. It is made from some scrap pine. It has 2 coats of golden pecan and 1 coat of polyurethane. I ended up painting the back piece white and it looks much better. I didnt show that in episode 50 but it looks much better now then it did before. This picture frame is about 7 inches wide and 9 inches tall and a little under a 1/4 inch thick.

Yo whats up everybody Today I spent about 12 hours cleaning up and organizing the whole garage. I installed a custom peg board on the side of a plastic storage rack to hold all of my tablesaw accessories. Behind that peg board on the second shelf down from the top is where I store my spline miter jigs. I wanted another place to put stuff on so I moved the tool box with my hand planes in it and the plastic organizer that holds pencils and marking tools and moved that to where my radio is. Then I glued a piece of hardboard down to top of the plastic storage rack. I ended up moving a box that was above my radio and put that on the other side of the garage so I could put the tool box and plastic organizer where my radio used to be. Then I put the radio on the shelf below. Then I set up 2 spot lights above the tablesaw with a foot switch that turns them on and 2 spot lights next to the scroll saw.

Yo whats up everybody I built theses napkin holders as christmas presents. If you watched Episode 48 Napkin Holders you saw these. They are made from recycled wood from some old dresser drawers. They are a little under a 1/4 inch thick. I think that any napkin holder that is thicker then a 1/4 doesnt really look right. It took about 3 hours total to build these and they were pretty simple to build. The only problem I had was the roundover because I had a 45 degree miter on the top and it was end grain. There is 3 coats of stain and 1 coat of Polyurethane.

Yo whats up everybody I have been working on this bookcase for about 2 months. I had to redo the shelves because when I was staining the edges the front edge got messed up then I trimmed the front edge up and that just made everything worse so I made new shelves. I didnt work on it for like 3 weeks so thats why it took so long. The bookcase is 30in tall and 18in wide. It is made out of pine and there are 2 shelves. I used dados instead of glue blocks like I did on the last bookcase. I made multiple passes on the tablesaw and that took a while but I was actually surprised how good they came out.It has 3 coats of stain and 1 coat of polyurethane.

Yo whats up everybody here is the final book case that is going to FDNY Ladder 120 Engine 231 and Battalion 44 in Brownsville Brooklyn. This was my entry for the saw dust chronicles 60 day build challenge. Now this was the biggest project that I have ever built and it took about 35 hours to finish this book case. The biggest problem I had was having to use wood blocks instead of dados to hold the shelves up. This added about 4 hours of extra work most of that was in the assembly and you will see that in episode 46 which is coming out on Monday. I started this book case on September 10 and ended it October 16. It is made out of 45 bd of oak. and I mixed the stain my self. The finish is a mix of golden pecan, red oak, english chestnut, and golden oak. The only big problem that I had beside the dados was the assembly which took about 5 hours total to assemble a 4 shelf book case thats 48 in tall and 24 in wide. I had a hard time getting all the shelves flat and level and the first time all the wood blocks fell down because the glue wasn’t strong enough to hold them up. I put 5 coats of stain and 2 coats of polyurethane on the shelves and sides. I didnt realize that I had to wait 24 hours for the finish to dry so thats why I ended up with so many coats. The back I put 2 coats of stain and 2 coats of polyurethane on because at that point I had found out that I needed to wait longer for the finish to dry. Total cost for this project was about $50 because I got a really good deal on the wood.

Yo whats up everybody here are 2 napkin holders that I built. I built a total of 5 and they only take about 20 minutes to make. These are made out of pine and total cost to build all 5 was less then $5 so you can make a lot of these in a short time.

Yo whats up everybody last weekend I was waiting for some of the crosses to dry after I stained them and I had some like 2 2×4s that were 8 ft long from the garden tool organizer and I decided to build a weight rack for the free weights in doesn’t show it in the pictures but right now I have a 10 15 and a 20 on each side. I mitered the top and for the first time I used math on a project but I divided the angle I used for the top which is 45 in half and used that angle for the base. The 2×4s on the bottom are 12 in and are centered with the vertical legs. The hardest part of this project was trying to get the cut outs for the free weights to look the same and the dust was a big problem my jig saw doesn’t have dust collection and I ended up having to moved the finishing table to the other side of the garage because of the dust it can really mess up a finish. It took about 4 hours to build this just because I was filming it and anybody who has a video podcast knows that it really slows you down but its not a big deal.

Yo whats up everybody here are about 25 finished crosses. I sill have over 90 to make before labor day so thats what im going to spend most of my time doing. The crosses are made out of 1×1s and are a 1/2 in thick because I split them in half. This is very cheap to I am using some scraps from the garden tool organizer and just to give you an idea its costs about $3 to make 30 crosses because the wood is cheap and I break scroll saw blades about every 40 crosses which is not bad. After I cut them in half I hand sand they with 120 then 150. I finish them with a 3 part golden pecan and 1 part red oak finish or just regular red oak depending what they want.

Yo whats up everybody here is the garden tool organizer I have been talking about for a few weeks. This was not very hard because it was mostly just repetitive cutting for the cross pieces. The legs and braces are made of 2×4s and the cross pieces are made of 1×1s The hardest part of the project was getting the legs to stay straight up. After I glued up the cross pieces then I sanded the top cross pieces. each of the cross pieces is screw on each and and glued for extra support.This project will be in an episode of my podcast in about 2 weeks.

Yo whats up everybody here are the final pictures of the refinishing project the first 2 pictures are the before and the 3rd and 4th pictures are the after pictures. The last picture is the door that I didnt do any work on and you can see the difference the 1×4 next to it is the stand. The stand is pine and oak and it looks really good. I went through over 20 ROS discs and 10 1/4 sander discs for the palm sander. Which looks better the before or after ?

Yo whats up everybody finally its done the winner of the 2009 spring saw dust chronicles builders contest……..... well not yet but here it is the desk organizer that I have spent a lot of time on and its done the final video will be out in a few days.